Yuko Shimizu

Link: http://www.yukoart.com/
Drawing had been Yuko's hobby ever since she was a child. However, growing up in a traditional Japanese family, pursuing a path in art was just not an option. After receiving BA in advertising and marketing – the most creative of the practical field – from Waseda University she landed on a position in PR for a big corporation in Tokyo.
It never made her quite happy, and she was in a mid-life crisis at age of 22.

It still took Yuko more than 10 years before she figured out what she really wanted to do and to save just enough so she could go back to school full time for 4 more years.
So she came back to New York in 1999, where she briefly spent her childhood, and enrolled in School of Visual Arts (SVA). Yuko graduated with Master's Degree from Illustration as Visual Essay Program in 2003 and has been illustrating since. She also teaches a BFA Illustration class and occasionally advises MFA students at SVA.
She works in a studio in Manhattan, a space she shares with two artists whom she considers as 'New York family'. She has not gotten into mid-life crisis since she became an artist.